Is the NBL season too short?

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

"I think we could pick up another couple of games in time."

NBL CEO David Stevenson has revealed the league could look at extending the current 28 game schedule through expansion or other new concepts.

When asked about the length of the season on Sport FM, Stevenson confirmed he is happy with the current timeline of the season, but didn’t rule out including more games as the competition continues to grow.

“It’s generally at a pretty good place at the moment. The fact they play 28 games, obviously a lot less than the NBA where they’re playing 82 games, it really works out around one and a half games a round or a weekend for the clubs,” Stevenson said.

“There could be an opportunity as we expand out, different teams coming in or some new concepts that we have been thinking about, that might add some more games.

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“I think it’s generally working reasonably well but I think we could pick up another couple of games in time.”

Teams played 36 games each during the 2020/21 campaign due to the NBL Cup, which added eight more matches onto the schedule for each club.

The move to 28 games was made in the 2009/10 season, with teams competing in 30 matches for the two seasons prior.

The season continues Thursday night when the Cairns Taipans host the Sydney Kings at 7:30pm AEDT live on ESPN via Kayo Sports.